Ayrshire Scotland Business News is provided by the Elite Ayrshire Business Circle, an association of some of the top companies in Ayrshire. We publicise our members, and celebrate and report the wealth and rich diversity of entrepreneurial and business excellence that abounds here in Ayrshire, south-west Scotland. For further information e-mail Murdoch@eliteayrshire.com

The Elite Ayrshire Business Circle

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

Donald Kay offers a taste of Rabbie Burns over breakfast

By: Murdoch MacDonald

AYRSHIRE tourism businesses are working together to offer visitors a unique Rabbie Burns experience.

Ayr’s Burnside Guest House and Donald Kay of Walkabout wi’ Rabbie Tours have joined forces to offer visitors a taste of the national bard over a Burns Breakfast.

Donald Kay, in his guise as Rabbie Burns, will join guests of The Burnside at breakfast time to give a potted history of Burns’s short but eventful life and recite a selection of his poetry including “Tam O'Shanter”.

Guests of the four-star guest house will be treated to a feast of porridge with whisky and cream, a traditional full Scottish breakfast with haggis and black bread, followed by fruit, cheese and oatcakes.

They will then have the opportunity to join “Rabbie” on a visit around Burns country on his walk-about tour including a visit to Burns Cottage and Museum, Burns Memorial, Alloway Kirk and Brig o’ Doon which plays a vital role in his most famous Tam O’Shanter poem. Guests will also be given the opportunity to enjoy a session of whisky tasting.

The Burns Breakfast is supported by Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire which is encouraging businesses to collaborate to develop new Burns-related products.

Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire tourism team leader Lynne Pringle said: “Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire is supporting tourism businesses to ensure that they capitalise on the legacy of Burns through innovation and collaboration. Earlier this year, we held workshops to encourage businesses to work together to develop new Burns tourism products, and this is an excellent example of this in action.

“Tourism is a growing industry in Ayrshire, worth £330 million to the economy and we are committed to working with the sector to develop its skills, innovation, products and destinations.”

Liz Drysdale, owner of The Burnside Guest House, said: “You’ve heard of the Burns Supper, now visitors can enjoy the Burns Breakfast. Burnside Guest House offers this experience as a memorable way to be introduced to the works and wonder of our national bard, and the breakfast is informal, entertaining and suitable for all ages.

“I really want to provide people with an introduction to the life of Burns, to encourage them to visit Burns country, and to find out more about this remarkable person. The Burns breakfast is a novel idea, and seemed a fun way of doing just that. We can now offer this new and unique experience to visitors throughout the year.”

Donald Kay, who has been awarded Entrepreneur of the Year for Ayrshire, added: “The Burns Breakfast is an excellent way for tourists to spend some time with Rabbie in the land of Burns, and learn about his life and poetry. Working with The Burnside Guest House has increased the enjoyment of the Walkabout wi’ Rabbie Tours experience, and we hope to further develop our collaboration."

Scottish Enterprise is the main economic development agency for Scotland covering 93% of the population from Grampian to the Borders. The Scottish Enterprise Network consists of Scottish Enterprise and 12 Local Enterprise Companies. Working in partnership with the private and public sectors the Network aims to build more and better businesses, to develop the skills and knowledge of Scottish people, and to encourage innovation to make Scottish business internationally competitive. Further information on Scottish Enterprise is available at www.scottish-enterprise.com

Tourism

Scottish Enterprise supports the Scottish tourist industry by helping businesses offer a world-class service to visitors. It offers a wide range of business development services in areas vital to the industry. These include e-business, skills development, collaboration, innovation and new product and service development. It is also involved in supporting the development of the tourism infrastructure through visitor attractions, countryside facilities and improvements in public areas such as town centres.

THE EDITORThe Editor of Ayrshire Scotland Business News is Murdoch MacDonald, a graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge University, where his journalistic contemporaries included John Simpson, now World Affairs Editor with the BBC, and Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian. Murdoch MacDonald has been in the public relations industry and a freelance journalist and broadcaster for more than 35 years.He has handled the PR accounts of many top Scottish companies, including Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Life, John Menzies, Kwik-Fit and Barratt Homes.

He has hosted his own family finance programmes - "£s, Pence and Sense" on Radio Forth and "Moneywise" on Scottish Television.He now runs Ayrshire’s top PR consultancy Fame Publicity Services.

Wherever you are in the world, no other public relations consultancy, PR firm or publicity company can offer you a better or more cost-effective worldwide news distribution service, combined with search engine optimisation techniques that will drive customers and qualified sales leads to your company's website.

Murdoch MacDonald is also managing director of the Elite Ayrshire Business Circle, an association of some of the top companies in Ayrshire.Telephone: 01292 281498E-mail: Murdoch@eliteayrshire.com

Murdoch and his wife Lilian (pictured above) have written a book called "Phoenix in a Bottle", describing how they overcame alcoholism and are now, contrary to conventional wisdom, able to drink alcohol responsibly again. "Phoenix in a Bottle" is published by Melrose Books price £16.99 and is now available worldwide.Reviewing the book, eminent American addiction expert Dr Stanton Peele PhD commented:

“Phoenix in a Bottle is a modern version of The Days of Wine and Roses, and tells the true story of how two people who entered a period of desperate drinking stayed with one another in a close loving relationship, and emerged from their alcoholism able to drink responsibly again.

“Both a wonderful love story and a challenge to conventional wisdom about how people can recover from drinking problems, Phoenix in a Bottle gives people hope, and helps them to confront their own demons - alcohol or otherwise.”

And now "Phoenix in a Bottle" has been selected as a set text by a top American university.

“Phoenix in a Bottle” by Lilian and Murdoch MacDonald will now be required reading for all doctoral students in a psychology programme at Alliant International University in San Diego, California.

Alliant International University, headquartered in San Diego and San Francisco, California, was formed in 2001 by the merger of the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) and the United States International University. Alliant has 6 campuses throughout California and also runs programmes in Mexico City, Hong Kong and Tokyo. The California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant is one of the premier psychology schools in the US, and it counts roughly half the licensed clinical psychologists in California as its alumni.

Dr. Gary W. Lawson is Professor of Psychology at CSPP. He says: “I adopted Phoenix in a Bottle because the dilemma this couple struggled with and the questions they ask themselves are like so many others I have encountered in 35 years of clinical experience treating addictions.“However, nowhere in addiction literature have I seen these issues examined and explained as well as Lilian and Murdoch do in Phoenix in a Bottle.“I also recommend Phoenix in a Bottle to many of my patients as well.”

You can buy "Phoenix in a Bottle" by Lilian and Murdoch MacDonald online now direct from Amazon UK (click on book cover image below).